Latest news with #TonyBlair
Times
3 hours ago
- Business
- Times
AI could free 30,000 civil servants from routine admin, study finds
Nearly 30,000 civil servants could be freed from carrying out routine admin every year if AI is rolled out across Whitehall, a government study has suggested. More than 20,000 civil servants across Whitehall took part in a three-month trial to use generative AI for help with tasks such as drafting documents, summarising meetings, and handling emails. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said this saved the equivalent of giving 1,130 full-time workers out of the 20,000 a full year back every year. Extrapolated across the whole civil service workforce of 514,395 people, the trial suggests 29,063 could be freed up for other work using AI. It comes as a study from the Alan Turing Institute found AI could support up to 41 per cent of tasks across the public sector. The artificial intelligence institute found that teachers spend nearly 100 minutes a day on lesson planning but up to 75 per cent of this could be supported by AI, while civil servants spend about 30 minutes daily on emails, where it is believed AI could cut this effort by more than 70 per cent. Civil servants in the government trial used AI to cut through jargon and streamline consultations, while work coaches utilised it to speed up support for jobseekers. They used tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot to assist with drafting documents, summarising lengthy emails, updating records, and preparing reports. Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, will highlight the results alongside Sir Tony Blair at the SXSW London festival on Monday. The two will discuss reimagining government and public service delivery in the age of AI. Last month, a separate government trial found AI is more impartial than civil servants in analysing responses to new policies and consultations. A new AI tool to sort responses to public consultations found that about 75,000 days of work could be saved, while civil servants themselves said it removed opportunities for them to 'project their own preconceived ideas' into processes and 'takes away the bias and makes it more consistent'. • Consult, the new tool that will be used across government, is part of Humphrey — a bundle of AI tools being used across Whitehall and named after Sir Humphrey Appleby, the fictional permanent secretary in Yes Minister. The tool categorises responses under broad headings and assigns them based on whether they agree or disagree with proposals or if they are unclear. At present this is done manually by civil servants who comb through about 500 consultations a year, with responses in the thousands. The tool will also help with the increasing number of template responses to consultations organised by campaign groups. However officials also said there was a rise in the number of campaigning organisations that encouraged people to use AI to write consultation responses, which could lead to a situation where AI is analysing responses written using trial of Consult was used to analyse responses to a Scottish government consultation on cosmetic procedures. Testers found that the majority of the time the AI agreed with what a human reviewer would have said. Officials who worked with Consult on the test said they were 'pleasantly surprised' that AI analysis provided a 'useful starting point' in its initial analysis, with others noting that it ultimately 'saved [them] a heck of a lot of time' and allowed them to 'get to the analysis and draw out what's needed next'. Kyle said: 'These findings show that AI isn't just a future promise — it's a present reality. Whether it's helping draft documents, preparing lesson plans or cutting down on routine admin, AI tools are saving civil servants time every day. That means we can focus more on delivering faster, more personalised support where it really counts.'
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
The UK must raise defence spending
The danger with any defence review is that it ends up fighting the last war or failing to anticipate the next threat. We are about to have the third in 10 years, which suggests the long-term planning that supposedly underpinned the previous reviews has been found wanting. The current review has been undertaken by, among others, Lord Robertson who as Labour defence secretary under Tony Blair oversaw an earlier iteration completed in 1998. It created the Joint Reaction Force and most controversially commissioned two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers seen at the time as a sop to Scottish shipyards and Labour's MPs north of the Border. One of those carriers, HMS Prince of Wales, together with accompanying strike group, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific at a time when tensions with China are growing. The US defense secretary Pete Hegseth has somewhat alarmingly suggested that a possible assault on Taiwan is imminent. This has been denied in Beijing but the military build up is ominous and is causing concern in the region. Australia's defence minister has called on China to explain why it needs to have 'such an extraordinary military build-up'. His counterpart in the Philippines has called China 'absolutely irresponsible and reckless' in its actions. In the face of this development, the £6 billion investment in carriers able to project UK power as part of a wider coalition designed to stop Chinese expansionism does not seem such a poor investment after all. The UK will also build up to a dozen new attack submarines under a multi-billion pound programme It has taken close to 30 years for the threat to materialise in the way it has, which is precisely what a strategic review is supposed to do – look to the long term. The latest takes place against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, something that was considered highly unlikely as recently as the 2015 review, even though by then Crimea had been annexed by Moscow. Anticipating the threats to national, regional and global security is difficult but they have not really changed that much in the past three decades. The biggest upheaval is in the willingness of the US to continue bankrolling the rest of the democratic world, which it is no longer prepared to do. The new reality is that much more money needs to be spent on defence than the 2.5 per cent of GDP promised by the Government. Unless we see a financial commitment commensurate to the threat this latest review risks foundering before it takes off.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The UK must raise defence spending
The danger with any defence review is that it ends up fighting the last war or failing to anticipate the next threat. We are about to have the third in 10 years, which suggests the long-term planning that supposedly underpinned the previous reviews has been found wanting. The current review has been undertaken by, among others, Lord Robertson who as Labour defence secretary under Tony Blair oversaw an earlier iteration completed in 1998. It created the Joint Reaction Force and most controversially commissioned two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers seen at the time as a sop to Scottish shipyards and Labour's MPs north of the Border. One of those carriers, HMS Prince of Wales, together with accompanying strike group, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific at a time when tensions with China are growing. The US defense secretary Pete Hegseth has somewhat alarmingly suggested that a possible assault on Taiwan is imminent. This has been denied in Beijing but the military build up is ominous and is causing concern in the region. Australia's defence minister has called on China to explain why it needs to have 'such an extraordinary military build-up'. His counterpart in the Philippines has called China 'absolutely irresponsible and reckless' in its the face of this development, the £6 billion investment in carriers able to project UK power as part of a wider coalition designed to stop Chinese expansionism does not seem such a poor investment after all. It has taken close to 30 years for the threat to materialise in the way it has, which is precisely what a strategic review is supposed to do – look to the long term. The latest takes place against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, something that was considered highly unlikely as recently as the 2015 review, even though by then Crimea had been annexed by Moscow. Anticipating the threats to national, regional and global security is difficult but they have not really changed that much in the past three decades. The biggest upheaval is in the willingness of the US to continue bankrolling the rest of the democratic world, which it is no longer prepared to do. The new reality is that much more money needs to be spent on defence than the 2.5 per cent of GDP promised by the Government. Unless we see a financial commitment commensurate to the threat this latest review risks foundering before it takes off. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Independent
10 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
With families facing impossible choices, Labour's should be easy
Few causes seize the emotions of the Labour Party as does the alleviation of child poverty, and rightly so. More than a quarter of a century since prime minister Tony Blair pledged that his generation would be 'the first to end child poverty', far too many families struggle, through no fault of their own, to provide for their children. One index of that national failure is highlighted by The Independent today: the surge in demand for help from baby banks. The cost of living crisis, with sharply higher energy bills and food prices hitting the poorest households hardest, has left hard-pressed parents seeking help to provide for their offspring. More than 3.5 million essential items were handed out by these charitable units in 2024, including nappies, clothes and cots – an increase of 143 per cent on the previous year. This trend is entirely consistent with the official statistics. Some 4.5 million children, representing 30 per cent of all children in the UK, were estimated to be living in households with a relative low income after housing costs (that is, with an income below 60 per cent of the median) in 2022-23. According to Save the Children UK and the Baby Bank Alliance, 219,637 families were supported by UK baby banks in 2024 alone – an increase of 35 per cent on the previous year. As valuable, indeed essential, as the work of charities is in supporting children in need, it is no substitute for action by government, and this Labour government in particular. While the Blair and Brown administrations made some progress in achieving their stated aim, including the passage of the Child Poverty Act in 2010, the subsequent coalition and Conservative years saw an effective abandonment of it. The two-child limit was imposed in 2017, and has been a source of misery and resentment ever since. The pressure on ministers to make an immediate impact on child poverty is growing, and it is coming from both inside and outside the party. Almost as soon as the Starmer administration was formed last year, a rebellion on the two-child cap on child benefits was organised by backbenchers on the left of the party. Derided as 'the usual suspects', the rebel MPs were brushed aside and dealt with by having the Labour whip removed. But they laid down a marker of what should be expected from a Labour government, even if the manifesto was vague. Now, disquiet around wider cuts to the social security budget is growing, and spreading to the rest of the party, including the usually loyal 2024 intake. Those in more marginal constituencies will also have found their instinct for social justice being given fresh impetus by Nigel Farage, who recently pledged to abolish the two-child cap (albeit for natalist rather than socialist reasons). Removing the hated cap is once more – in the words of Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary – 'on the table'. So it should be. It would not end child poverty – this social evil is far too entrenched to be susceptible to such an easy fix – but it would result in an immediate and significant improvement for a great number of children. Child poverty is especially acute in larger households: 44 per cent of children living in families with three or more children are in poverty. The Child Poverty Action Group says that 350,000 children would be lifted straight out of poverty, and a further 300,000 would find their conditions improved. To place that in context, about half a million children were rescued from poverty across the entire span of the 1997 to 2010 Labour government. The problem is money, but it is not an extravagant amount when viewed in the context of the social security budget. Lifting the cap would cost the Exchequer some £3.4bn, or 3 per cent of the bill for working-age benefits. Indeed, even if one were to factor in a reversal of the cut to the winter fuel payment, and of the scheduled cuts to disability benefits, the total cost would be £10bn a year. That is a more substantial sum, but one that could still be accommodated inside an envelope of public spending amounting to £1,200bn. The process of running the UK's public finances has become one of absurdly tight margins, dictated by the chancellor's habit of allowing herself far too little room for manoeuvre in her self-imposed fiscal rules. Hence the constant crises and the wearying, never-ending search for cuts, which are too often made at the expense of those who can least afford them. As the chancellor approaches the comprehensive public spending review, she deserves some sympathy for the scale of the task ahead of her. She is right to say that no programme to support social justice can be launched on the basis of unsustainable public finances. The establishment of free breakfast clubs and stronger protections for renters and workers will also push child poverty rates lower. But some of the choices she has made have not been wise ones, and they now need to be revisited. Politically, it seems increasingly apparent that Ms Reeves and her colleagues on the Child Poverty Taskforce, led by Ms Phillipson and Liz Kendall, have no alternative, when they report in the autumn, but to renew Labour's mission to make sure no child goes without food, shelter or clothing. It now falls to their generation to eradicate this scourge for good.
Telegraph
13 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Starmer has entered the ‘degeneration' phase. His MPs are in despair
Shortly after the general election, The Daily T – the podcast I present with colleague Camilla Tominey – held a live event for Telegraph readers at our headquarters in central London. It was a very jolly affair, with prosecco on hand as Camilla, Gordon Rayner, our Associate Editor, and I discussed the state of politics and answered questions. The biggest worry in the audience was that Starmer was simply Tony Blair in disguise, and was being 'run' by Labour's most successful Prime Minister in history via his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute. This was nonsense, I suggested. Blair was far too Right-wing for Starmer. Chatting afterwards, a number of attendees came up to me to make a point about what being 'Prime Minister of the country' meant to them. 'We have to give him a chance,' one Conservative voter said. 'He won, it's good to end the chaos, and he is the leader now. As long as he is sensible, we will see how it goes.' This is a very British view of politics and one I wholeheartedly support. The office of Prime Minister is one to be respected, politicians need time to affect change and following the psychodramas of Boris Johnson and the rest a period of calm would be very much welcomed. I wonder how that Conservative voter is feeling now. After a reasonable opening day speech about governing for everyone, Starmer has induced nausea. Freebie gifts revealed that it was still 'one rule for them'. With no discussion or preparation, the Winter Fuel Allowance was scrapped for all but the lowest paid pensioners. A £22 billion 'black hole' appeared to come as a shock to the Chancellor despite every sensible analyst saying before the election that the public finances were shot. The Budget raised taxes after Labour promises that it would not. 'I need to fix the foundations,' Rachel Reeves told voters as the polls started slipping. Starmer agreed. 'Growth' was everything and 'tough Labour' would not be indulging in any U-turns. Even that gargantuan and ever-increasing benefits bill would be tackled. Being controversial can have a point in politics – as long as you stick to the course. Starmer has done the opposite, the lead character in a political tragedy about a man who wanted to be king but did not know why. The PM has confused noise from opponents, backbenchers and pressure groups with the very different purpose of running the country. The result has been strategic chaos – a disaster for anyone residing in Number 10. Where once he was positive about the effects of immigration, now he is talking about 'an island of strangers'. Where the cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance were an absolute necessity – now they will be at least partially reversed (although when and by how much will be a political running sore for months to come). The two child benefit cap is likely to be lifted. The UK will be in and not in the European Union. I speak to many senior Labour figures every week. They pinpoint the disastrous local elections as the moment Starmer buckled afresh, casting around in desperation for anything that might shift momentum. A caucus of Red Wall Labour MPs, led by Jo White, demanded changes, particularly to disability benefit cuts. 'We will not budge,' Downing Street insisted, exactly as they had done over the Winter Fuel Allowance. Few believe that position will hold. Negative briefings are starting to swirl around Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff. Enemies point out, and there are many, that the 'hard choices' approach has given way too easily to 'I'll U-turn if you want me to'. Policies that MPs expended a lot of energy defending are now being abandoned, the quickest way to lose faith on the back benches. Nearly 200 Labour councillors lost their jobs in the May elections, a rich seam of angry activists who blame the man at the top. Starmer and Sweeney go back, to the dark days of the Hartlepool by-election loss in 2021 when Labour was trounced by the Conservatives. Starmer considered quitting and outsourced much of his political thinking to McSweeney, who picked him up and dusted him off. The Corbyn-lite approach that had won the PM the Labour leadership was jettisoned and 'sensible Starmer' took its place, the dry technocrat who would focus on what works. Labour MPs of the modernising tendency fear Corbyn-lite is creeping back. Adrift in a sea of collapsing personal ratings, Starmer is trying his own form of 'back to basics' – the basics of 'all will have jam' Left wing economics. 'We have no idea who is driving the bus,' said one well placed Labour figure on the chopping and changing at the centre. 'It is not about jam today or jam tomorrow. With no growth there is no jam.' Reeves is in an increasingly precarious position. She marched into the gunfire with a degree of political bravery, insisting that her decisions had to be taken to re-energise the economy. My Treasury sources insist there are glimmers of hope that the strategy is working. The first three months of the year saw growth above estimates. Business confidence has started to pick up. In the spending review on June 11, the Chancellor will announce billions of pounds in capital investment in transport hubs, energy, schools, hospitals and research and development. These are the right policies. The PM is striding in the opposite direction, creating a tension between Number 10 and Number 11 that never augurs well for good government. When Labour published its manifesto in 2024, the only person beyond Starmer himself to appear regularly in the glossy photographs was Reeves. Now it would be Angela Rayner, who is noisily demanding more tax rises. Like grief, governments travel through five phases. Euphoria, honeymoon, stability, degeneration, failure. Starmer has managed to leap-frog the first three and has entered 'degeneration' well before the first anniversary of a victory which gave him a 171 seat majority. Even his allies look on baffled, failing to understand that government is difficult, that you cannot gyrate between policy positions and expect appalling poll numbers to improve. Leading requires courage, vision and an ability to communicate. Consistency is the prosaic truth that the Prime Minister has failed to grasp.
